Operators of machine fleets need to know where each machine in the fleet is located and what it is doing in order to make decisions on how to use the machines most efficiently. In recent years, the fleet management systems that have developed rely on on-board telemetric systems to allow each machine to communicate with the external computing platform. These fleet management systems allow an operator to locate and determine what each machine is doing in real-time. Further, the fleet management systems provide an operator with an ability to receive information from the external computing platform for improved fleet management.
Typically, these fleet management systems require a common software and/or hardware interface with a machine in order for the external computing platform to communicate with the machine. Unfortunately, many legacy machines and third party machines do not have the requisite software and/or hardware and may not be able to communicate with the fleet management system. As such, operators may not have basic machine operation data for all of the machines in their fleet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,131 (the '131 patent), entitled “Vehicle Tracking, Communication and Fleet Management System,” discloses a system and method for tracking machines in a fleet. The system described in the '131 patent includes GPS receivers in the machines in order to relay location information back to a central management office. However, the system described in the '379 patent relies on hardware and/or software of the machine in order to communicate with the central management office. Machines from third party vendors may not be able to communicate properly with the central management office. Accordingly, there is a need for improved system and methods to address the aforementioned problems and/or other problems known in the art.
It will be appreciated that this background description has been created to aid the reader, and is not to be taken as a concession that any of the indicated problems were themselves known in the art.